
In a stunning admission that threatens to shake the foundation of the APNU’s long-held claims, one of the coalition’s senior campaign managers from the 2020 general and regional elections has publicly declared that the party lost at the polls—and knew it.
Samuel Sandy, who served as APNU’s Operations Manager for its East Coast campaign during the controversial 2020 elections, is now speaking out. And he’s not holding back.
“I was the operations manager for the East Coast Campaign. I was responsible for collecting all Statements of Poll (SOPs), and I did take it upon myself to record the scores of every SOP received. I took pictures. I kept them. I still have them,” Sandy said.
What he saw in those SOPs, he says, left no doubt in his mind: APNU lost.
Now serving as Region Four’s Vice Chairman, Sandy revealed that he went to the Ashmin’s Building—the elections command center during the final count—with his tabulations in hand. But what he witnessed left him conflicted.
“I listened to the numbers being tabulated. I looked at my numbers, and I thought to myself, where might this be going?” he recalled. “I think at that point it was more making a decision between supporting hope of a large section of society and that of personal integrity. I chose the former…”
Fear and loyalty, he admitted, kept him silent. Living in Golden Grove—a known PNC stronghold—Sandy said he was not prepared to face the fallout from speaking his truth.
“How can I go home and say, hey, I just informed them that the numbers declared weren’t the actual numbers that I shared with the party?” he said.
Sandy’s conscience, however, eventually won out. He says he has since made peace with himself and no longer feels the need to remain quiet.
“It doesn’t matter where it goes onwards. I think even in my letter to the party leader, I cautioned—well, not really cautioned, I should say I begged of him—to be honest with the people of Guyana and tell them that we lost the elections.”
In a striking revelation, Sandy also claimed that then-President David Granger was unaware of any plans to tamper with the election outcome. According to Sandy, had Granger known, he would not have agreed to a national recount.
The fallout from that election dragged on for months and sparked international scrutiny. Despite APNU’s persistent claim that it won, the final results declared the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) as the victor. Sandy, now disillusioned with the PNC, says he has since severed ties with the party and is publicly endorsing the PPP/C for a second term.
His testimony, now in the public domain, could reignite debate over what really happened in 2020—and whether key figures in the APNU leadership were complicit in misleading the country.
As Guyana moves toward another election cycle, the political consequences of Sandy’s disclosure may only just be beginning.